MP: BSP leader objects to use of his photos by Congress MLA wife in her birthday hoardings; warns of action

Balaghat: A former MP in Madhya Pradesh has warned that he would initiate action against his wife, who is a Congress MLA from Balaghat constituency, if she does not stop using his photos in her political hoardings and banners.

The former parliamentarian and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader, Kankar Munjare, expressed anger over the use of his photos in the hoardings put up in the city to wish Anubha Munjare on her birthday on Wednesday. He even got the hoardings removed.

During the Lok Sabha elections, he had told his legislator wife, Anubha, to leave the house due to differences in their political ideologies. Both of them currently live separately.

"This is an irresponsible attitude as MLA Anubha Munjare used my photo on hoardings without my consent. This is my insult. She should stay within her limits and use the pictures of her own (party) leaders," he told PTI.

He said that this shows her "petty mentality".

"I am in a different party and she is in another. How is my picture being used? My name should not figure in any of her programmes. I don't have any relation with it. This is objectionable. I am not filing an FIR. I am leaving her this time and she should not repeat such an act again," he said.

When asked that this is all in the family, former MP Munjare said, "Family has nothing to do in this (episode). Politics is based on our principles. The family doesn't mean that she uses my name for gaining votes and increase the voter base. Why are her leaders not stopping her (from using my photos)?" Munjare said that he has nothing to do with her politics and both have contested the elections separately.

Anubha, however, said that Kankar Munjare is a respected leader and he did what he thought was right.

She doesn't want to say anything more, the Congress MLA said.

Amid the Lok Sabha election campaigning in April this year, former MP Munjare, who was contesting on Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) ticket, had asked his Congress MLA wife to stay away till polling day on April 19.

In the November 2023 Madhya Pradesh assembly elections, Anubha Munjare contested on a Congress ticket and won from the Balaghat assembly seat. Her husband Kankar Munjare contested from the Paraswada assembly seat on a Gondwana Gantantra Party (GGP) candidate and lost.

Kankar Munjare then contested this year's Lok Sabha elections from Balaghat as a BSP candidate. He lost the election and could bag more than 53,000 votes.

Kankar Munjare had won the Balaghat Lok Sabha seat as an independent candidate in 1989.